The Archaeological Signatures of Empire: Excavations and Survey at the Iron Age Fortress of Oglanqala, Azerbaijan

在国家科学基金会的支持下，劳伦·里斯特韦博士将对阿契美尼德(波斯)帝国的帝国主义性质及其对阿塞拜疆纳克萨奇万当地社区的影响进行为期三年的考古调查。考古队将汇集来自美国、阿塞拜疆、意大利和英国的考古和物理学专家，在纳克萨齐万沙鲁尔平原的奥伊纳兰卡拉要塞进行调查和挖掘。约从公元前800年开始，冈兰卡拉可能是当地政体的中心，后来被并入阿契美尼德帝国(公元前550-330年)的北部边界。因此，该地区提供了一个非同寻常的机会来研究阿契美尼德帝国的帝国和经济战略。学者们认为阿契美尼德帝国是古代近东帝国主义的顶峰，也是后来地中海和中东帝国的典范，包括罗马和萨桑波斯。然而，人们对这个帝国在伊朗西部心脏地带以外的考古知之甚少，直到最近，一些学者还质疑这个帝国的存在。过去20年在伊朗、安纳托利亚、高加索和中亚的发掘提供了新的数据，证实了帝国的存在和范围，但其帝国性质和短暂影响的原因仍有待分析。阿契美尼德帝国中心是如何与当地居民互动的？帝国主义如何改变财富的生产和消费？地方精英们是如何在新的帝国框架下谈判权力的？为了调查奥卡兰卡拉的阿契美尼德帝国主义的性质，研究人员将通过挖掘、多仪器地球物理测量、卫星图像分析、地表测量、考古植物学、动物考古学、土壤微形态、陶瓷分析和三维地理信息系统构建，测试四种地方和帝国相互作用的模型。研究将考察帝国主义如何改变该省中心和沙鲁尔平原的空间利用，并将通过分析帝国主义如何影响奥伊纳兰卡拉的陶瓷和农业生产、消费和分配来定义帝国主义的经济和文化影响。该项目的学术价值在于，它能够通过探索一个结合了“霸权”和“领土”战略的帝国的实际运作，使对帝国主义的理论理解超越二分法的定义。这一对互动、文化适应和身份认同建立的调查为其他现代和古代帝国的类似辩论提供了一个比较的视角。该项目还将开发一个三维地理信息系统，其中整合了调查、挖掘和分析的数据，以帮助调查人员将他们的研究联系起来，并在一系列尺度上对空间、政治权力和经济生产之间的关系产生广泛的理解。这项研究将提供有关该地区的重要信息，该地区在一个鲜为人知的历史时期缺乏任何重大调查工作。因此，它将填补近东和欧亚考古学的一个重大空白，并为在这一充满活力的地区对帝国主义的学术理解进行重大修订提供基础。来自多个机构的美国和阿塞拜疆本科生和研究生将参加实地考察工作，以获得适用于21世纪调查的跨学科技术培训，并增强他们对阿塞拜疆考古的知识。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Lauren Ristvet will conduct a three-year archaeological investigation into the nature of imperialism in the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire and its effects on local communities in Naxçývan, Azerbaijan. The team will bring together experts in archaeology and physics from the US, Azerbaijan, Italy, and England to conduct surveys and excavations at the fortress of Oðlanqala, in the Sharur plain of Naxçývan. Oðlanqala probably served as the center of a local polity beginning about 800 B.C., and later became incorporated into the northern frontiers of the Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BC). The area offers, therefore, an extraordinary opportunity to investigate the imperial and economic strategies of the Achaemenid Empire.Scholars recognize the Achaemenid Empire as the apogee of Ancient Near Eastern imperialism and as a model for later Mediterranean and Middle Eastern empires, including Rome and Sassanian Persia. Yet so little is known about the archaeology of this empire outside its Western Iranian heartland that until recently some scholars questioned the empire's very existence. Excavations in Iran, Anatolia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia during the last twenty years provided new data affirming the existence and extent of the empire, but its imperial nature and the reasons for its ephemeral impact still await analysis. How did imperial Achaemenid centers interact with local populations? How did imperialization change the production and consumption of wealth? How did local elites negotiate power in a new imperial framework? To investigate the nature of Achaemenid imperialism at Oðlanqala, researchers will test four models of local and imperial interaction through excavation, multiple instrument geophysical survey, satellite imagery analysis, surface survey, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, soil micromorphology, ceramic analysis and 3D GIS construction. Research will examine how imperialism transformed the use of space at this provincial center and in the Sharur plains and will define the economic and cultural impact of imperialism by analyzing how it affected ceramic and agricultural production, consumption, and distribution at Oðlanqala. The intellectual merit of the project lies in its ability to move theoretical understandings of imperialism beyond dichotomous definitions, by exploring the actual operation of an empire that combined "hegemonic" and "territorial" strategies. This investigation of interaction, acculturation, and identity-building provides a comparative perspective for similar debates in other modern and ancient empires. The project will also develop a three-dimensional GIS that incorporates data from surveys, excavations, and analyses to help investigators connect their research across disciplines, and to create a broad understanding of the relationship between space, political power, and economic production at a range of scales. The study will provide significant information about a region that has lacked any major investigative work during a little-known historical period. It will thus fill a major gap in Near Eastern and Eurasian archaeology and provide the basis for major revisions in the scholarly understanding of imperialism in this dynamic region. U.S. and Azerbaijani undergraduate and graduate students from several institutions will participate in the fieldwork to gain interdisciplinary training in techniques appropriate to 21st century investigations and enhance their knowledge of the archaeology of Azerbaijan.